A potentially lucrative sponsorship deal for Mercedes' newly acquired and rebranded formula one team looks set to end in dispute.

A potentially lucrative sponsorship deal for Mercedes' newly acquired and rebranded formula one team looks set to end in dispute.

The German financial newspaper Handelsblatt reports that, earlier this year, the Brackley based team's Brawn GP management agreed a three-year 90 million euro contract with Henkel.

Dusseldorf-based Henkel is an adhesives and liquids company that has previously sponsored McLaren.

The firm's now departed sponsorship chief agreed and signed the deal with Brawn prior to the Mercedes takeover, but CEO Kasper Rorsted is refusing to honour the contract because he nor the executive board approved it.

The staff member in question is the subject of an embezzlement and fraud investigation, after he faked bills and sold them for 45m euros to debt recovery firms.

11m euros of the allegedly embezzled money is missing, the newspaper added. The Reuters news agency said Henkel filed a suit against the team last month.